“We meet with the surgeon, the esteemed doctor, the footy club and myself, we came to the idea that hopefully in a couple of weeks it would have had a chance to settle down to start and heal naturally, then I went out and trained and I said to them, 'Look, it feels no good' (and) the surgeon had the same epiphany overnight.

"He called the club doctor by the time of me going in and telling the club doctor. The surgeon had called as well said we’d probably best go in and tidy a few things up and that should give me the best change to get back at some point this year.”

Thomas said Buckley had cautioned him to be responsible about his use of Twitter after using social media while on painkillers before his operation.

"Bucks put out a tweet saying it is probably not the best time to be tweeting so I just sent a message to make sure that if we still keep tweeting it was all right rather than get a sanction from the Australian Cricket Board or something."

Thanks for all the well wishes!0 Op went well, resting up at the minute & plotting my path for a late season return! #smokeyforthebrownlow